Teachers at the River Islands Workshop
GVWP Demonstration Labs for Teachers The teachers who created the Writing & Technology Workshop at River Islands are dedicated professionals who care deeply about each student's individual progress. They worked and studied together as part of the "GVWP Demonstration Labs," a unique set of college courses sponsored by Great Valley Writing Project at California State University, Stanislaus.
Ten GVWP Teacher Consultants met from January through May to plan curriculum units to demonstrate at the GVWP Writing & Technology Workshops. Each grade-span team created lessons designed to stimulate thinking and motivate students to express their ideas. |
This workshop is empowering! We dive right into using technology as a tool for teaching writing. It's exciting to see the students thoroughly engaged and on task. — Liz Covarrubias
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This writing workshop has been an excellent tool to learn new ways to implement technology and writing in the classroom. This course helps not only teach the strategies, but with the students here, we can see the strategies in action!
— Jamie Fannell |
Twenty-seven additional teachers signed up to work with these leaders at the GVWP Demo Lab (July 11-20). Teachers formed teams based on their assigned grade spans to read an assigned text, discuss instructional strategies, observe model lessons, and practice new techniques, with everyone focused on a common goal: to become better teachers of writing.
When students arrived at the Writing & Technology Workshop, the teachers learned as much from the students as the students learned from the teachers. Every day, before and after the workshop, teachers met to discuss their reading, their observations, and their discoveries. Many reported eye-opening reactions as they saw students respond to different styles of instruction. In every classroom at the workshop, multiple teachers were on hand to meet student needs. Each teacher served as writing mentor for a small group of students, building personal relationships and discovering each student's strengths, needs, and interests. In just ten short days, the small-group interactions helped to create the kind of comfortable, honest communication that promotes academic growth. For teachers, the small-group mentoring provided the ultimate luxury: time to watch, listen, think, discuss, and try new strategies. |
To plan for the Writing & Technology Workshop, the seven teachers in the K-2 classroom met together in March to read No More, “I’m Done!” Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades by Jennifer Jacobson. From March through May, they experimented with writing lessons from the text in their own classrooms. They met to discuss results and decide which lessons to use at the workshop. During the workshop, the teachers continued their daily meetings to refine lesson plans and to take full advantage of technology at the site.
Teachers in the 3rd-5th grade classroom studied Crafting Writers by Elizabeth Hale, a powerful book that helps teachers identify the specific techniques that make up quality writing and explains how to teach the elements of the author's craft that can move students forward as writers. In daily debriefing meetings, the teachers analyzed the instructional content and discussed ways to improve lessons. They found new ways to build understanding, motivate revision, and jump-start learning. Teachers in the 5th-12th grade classrooms read Texts and Lessons for Content-Area Reading by Harvey Daniels and Nancy Steineke. This text provides nonfiction reading materials and specific lessons to show students how proficient readers think and how skillful collaborators act. With a combination of interesting texts, smart-reader strategies, and teacher-modeled discussion skills, the teachers helped students deepen their reading comprehension and become more effective collaborators. |
I am excited to see so much technology being used in the workshop this year. The students are eager to write and thrilled to use the iPads .
As a teacher I am learning new things each day that I want to use in my own classroom. I am looking forward more GVWP experiences and seeing what more there is to learn! — Lisa Holcombe |
I am amazed at how many awesome techniques and tools I have learned in such a short period of time. The teachers who run the program are skilled and passionate. I cannot wait to try these lessons and activities in my own classroom!
— Brittany Kilpatrick |
With such wonderful guidebooks and so many colleagues contributing insights, every teacher gained new understandings and wider perspectives. Together, they all discovered effective ways to address the varied needs of a diverse group of students while helping those students meet the Common Core State Standards.
In August, the teachers will bring new ideas back to their classrooms to recreate the excitement, productivity, and learning with students at their own schools! WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS AT GVWP DEMO LABS?
To learn more about what teachers did and learned during the GVWP Demonstration Lab at River Islands, read the Workshop Newsletter or take a peek at Comments that teachers submitted at the end of the program. |